Women's Issues, Peace, Creativity & Spirituality

Tag Archives: community

Many of us talk a lot about the eternal wars we seem to be involved in and that we want peace. Well, a peacenik friend send information about a company who is Paying It Forward. I did some research to see if it was authentic and it really is. Gift giving season is coming and this would be a way to put a check mark next to a name on your list and make a real difference.

I plan to join the unarmed forces and I hope that many of you will also join around the world. I am excited to share this company with you and that it will among other things help girls in Afghanistan get education.

Namaste

Barbara

THE MISSION

To create peaceful, forward-thinking opportunities for self-determined entrepreneurs affected by conflict. Our willingness to take bold risks, community connection, and distinct designs communicate, “Business, Not Bullets”–flipping the view on how wars are won. Through persistence, respect, and creativity, we empower the mindful consumer to manufacture peace through trade.

As Army Rangers with several Afghanistan tours behind them, Griff and Lee saw a country filled with hard-working, creative people who wanted jobs, not handouts.

Flip flops were just the start. We’ve taken a product that people in nearly every country on the planet wear, and made it a weapon for change. Right now, all our flip flops are made in Bogota, Colombia, providing jobs and investing in people who desperately need it. We’ve done that with all the products we sell.

Our USA made Claymore Bag’s flip the script, on traditional weapons of war. Instead of carrying bombs, these bags act as a carry-all for business tools like iPad’s, laptops and more.

Our Cover and Concealment sarongs are handmade in Afghanistan by local women. Each one takes three days to make, and each sale puts an Afghan girl into secondary school for a week.

The Peacemaker Bangle and Coinwrap are sent to us straight from artisans in Laos – and they’re made from bombs. Each bracelet sold clears 3 square meters of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) from a region rocked by long-term war – saving lives and providing economic opportunity.

UNAPOLOGETICALLY, WE MAKE COOL STUFF IN DANGEROUS PLACES.

We do this because it’s our job to show others what’s possible, then encourage them to join us.

WELCOME TO THE UNARMED FORCES.

Their most popular product is their original, the AK47 flipflop:

They also make fabric scarves, called shemaghs, made in Kabul, Afghanistan. The sale of each shemagh puts one Afghan girl into secondary school for 1 day. According to their website, 103 girls have been enrolled in school for the full year since Janaruy 2016.

This week, in honor of back to school, charitable donations are increased by 2x

The charity supported is: Aid Afghanistan for Education (AAE)
“When we educate a woman, we educate a family. Unless we educate the Afghan population, there will be no peace.”

~Hassina Sherjan, Executive Director, Aid Afghanistan for Education.

Devastation, war, and violence in Afghanistan created a regressive, fundamentalist education system that prevented modern education for children, and denied opportunities for women to work and fend for their families. We believe education is the only vehicle to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. Every Afghan has the right to be educated, create opportunity, and add value to their country’s future. Since 2003, AAE has established 13 schools in 9 provinces that educate marginalized Afghans deprived of an education during the years of conflict in the region—or do not have access to a formal education system. Currently, 3,000 female and 104 male students are attending AAE schools.

Today, is the holiest day in the Jewish year. It is a day for assessing oneself and how we are doing living our lives. Adonai gave the ten commandments, but he had other acts in mind that he/she didn’t want people to do. Tonight, begins the high holy day, Yom Kippur. Jews worldwide will be in temple or their homes and they will be honestly looking inside of their hearts and souls.

On Yon Kippur, it is said that the names of those who will live through the New Year will be written into the book of life for another year. Wrong doing or sin, is looked at personally and as a community.

I like this concept that the community can sin as a whole and we all share responsibility. So what kinds of things is he/she talking about?

Assumed the worst in others and the best of ourselves.

Betrayed the trust others have placed in us.

Confused that which is essential with that which is not,

Destroyed ourselves with needless abuses,

Enjoyed the downfall of our adversaries with glee.

Felt superior to others by means of ability, wealth or power.

Given less than our full selves to our community and our world.

Hastened to decry responsibility for our own actions,

Instigated animosity among others,

Junked our world with trash, showing no retard for the environment.

Kindled misplaced passions.

Lied to cover our vanities.

Missed opportunities to better ourselves.

Negated the validity of others in an effort to aggrandize ourselves,

Observed persons in need, and ignored what we saw.

Perverted the blessings of our lives into dangerous obsessions and mere possessions.

Quietly slipped into lived defined by moral decay,

Refused ourselves and other our love.

Seduced ourselves with the lie that “no one is going to get hurt.”

Trivialized the power we represent in God’s Universe.

Unleashed hurtful words.

Valued strangers more than our family and friends.

Wished ill upon others,

Xeroxed in violation of copyright and trademark.

Yielded to temptation.

Zestfully pursued happiness to the exclusion of goodness.

—Rabbi David Greenspoon and Steve Kerbel

A Prayer For Peace

Let us live in peace, God.

Let children live in peace, in homes free from brutality and abuse.

Let them go to school in peace, free from violence and fear.

Let them play in peace, God, in safe parks, in safe neighborhoods; watch over them.

Let husbands and wives love in peace, in marriages free from cruelty.

Let men and women work in peace, with no fears of terror or bloodshed.

Let us travel in peace; protect is, God, in the air, on the seas, along whatever road we take.

Let nations dwell together in peace, without the threat of war hovering over them.

Help us, God. Teach all people of all races and faiths, in all the countries all over the world to believe that the peace that seems so far off is in fact within our reach.

Like this:

My dear Dr. Rex returned this lovely award to me. She has been my friend for some time now, and is one of the reasons why

I feel like I truly am part of a Community!

Her take on this award is something I agree with wholeheartedly, and I’d like to share it with you:

“Much is frequently said about “community“. I see ourselves as a group of people who have similar ideas, concepts, interests and values. Another quality that we have in common is that we had a basic need to share what we have to offer each in a very individualized and different way.

This is our blogging community. “

It is important for creative people to have many communities where they can interact with other creative people, and where love and support are shared like they are in a family.

I think that the concept of community as family is extremely important because, for many artistic or creative people, acceptance by their biological families and many friends may not be forthcoming, because these people think “out of the box” ; their priorities are different, often not as materialistic as the people around them. It is wonderful to have a community such as this where you can say what you feel, and know that it will be accepted without judgment, and where our innovative ideas won’t leave people gasping in shock.

~~Simple rules~~

Display the logo on a post.

Link back to the person who nominated you.

Nominate 14 readers other bloggers and inform them via comment in their blog sites.

There are many religions and paths to journey in this lifetime. Everyone is certain that their way is the right way. I would like to put forth the theory that everyone is right. There is one Divine Being and it makes no difference what we call him/her/it. It doesn’t matter how we contact Divinity.

There is no God of any people who is not his God, no spiritual teacher of any creed who is not his teacher.There is no sacred scripture that he does not accept, since he is a worshipper of light and a follower of love. Yet he is free from all the world’s distinctions and differences.

The diversity of names in the universe to him is a veil of illusion which covers unity, the one life. Only One lives, and all manifestations are to him the phenomenon of that one life.

Sufi’s call their concept of God, the Beloved. They also call this Divinity Buddha, Mohammend and Jesus and Zoraster. Sufi’s are mystics and have contact with the One during meditation and certain practices. This Divine Being is all that is good and ideal in this universe. It is Beauty in its perfection.

Sufi’s believe that as high as is the ideal of a person, so high he rises in life. Then in the end he sees the Ideal was made by himself.

A Sufi does not withdraw from the world, but instead participates in life both by viewing it from above and from below. His holy book is nature and his community is the entire of mankind. So we are all united in love and adoration of the beauty of the Divinity of this Universe.

Help Save a Child

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

HANDS UP 4 JUSTICE APP

The Hands Up 4 Justice audio and video APP records encounters with law enforcement. This APP was created to video and audio record encounters with law enforcement for your safety. The best use of the APP once pulled over by the police, turn on the front facing camera and start recording..

Protests – Black Lives Matter

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

KEEP EYES ON THE POLICE. NATIONAL POLICE VIOLENCE MAPPING TOOL.

Tool designed to help you hold Elected Officials accountable for police violence.

Hank Johnson Justice Fund

NO JUSTICE, NO MONEY
In the wake of the killings of unarmed black men and boys and the outrageous failure to prosecute their killers, Hank Johnson is introducing the Grand Jury Reform Act. This bill will prohibit the use of a grand jury when determining whether to prosecute a police officer in the event of a death. The status quo isn’t working. The evidence is clear. The people are demanding a real response from their elected leaders.

I am a retired widow with 4 kids and 9 grands. I worked as a nurse, and in Domestic Violence, and many non-profits, I was a donor health counselor for the American Red Cross and am a certified HIV counselor. I worked as a counselor and I have been a make-up artist and selling specialists for several American designers. I love life. I am very spiritual. I grew up in 50's and 60's and truly am the idealistic rebel which is the name of my blog. I love music, books, reading, Kindle, beauty. I am a photographer and an artist. I believe in making the world better one day at a time. I am now living in Asheville, NC.